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Leonard Ncube Court Reporter
HUNDREDS of Geozing Pawnbrokers Investment clients yesterday thronged the 2 000-seater Bulawayo Amphitheatre for a meeting called to discuss how they could get their money back. Geozing Pawnbrokers Investments was two months ago placed under provisional liquidation following the granting of a High Court order by Justice Martin Makonese.
Its directors, George Zingane and his wife, Duduzile Ndlovu ceased to be directors.
The provisional liquidators called a meeting yesterday to map the way forward.
Mr Matshobana Ncube, a prominent lawyer who was made co-provisional liquidator with Mr Philip Ndlovu, did not attend the meeting, which was addressed by the Deputy Master of the High Court, Mr R Antonio.
Mr Antonio told the clients that they were struggling to identify some for the assets although indications were that Zingane had acquired massive personal wealth probably from the clients’ money.
He could not be drawn into giving a full list of individual assets, saying they were still trying to identify more.
“For now we have identified a few assets and we need to continue looking for more. Some of the assets include mines, businesses, vehicles, houses and housing stands and these are not enough to pay everyone. Therefore we cannot give actual figures now because we are still to evaluate the properties like mines and other businesses,” said Mr Antonio.
The clients said they were aware that Zingane was hiding some assets.
“Provisional liquidators are looking into that. It seems there were no assets which were in the name of the company itself. We went down to look into the assets and gathered a number of them.
“We know that the company had interests in certain mines but the report we have for now does not have rights into those mines and as such we need time to go there with valuators and see how much they are worth.
“We had a tough time with provisional liquidators in trying to identify the assets and we convened a meeting with lawyers upon which we established that they were registered in personal names of the directors. They were asked to voluntarily surrender these assets we have now,” said Mr Antonio.
Clients were concerned that Zingane could have invested in personal projects using their money, as it emerged that he acquired massive personal wealth including mines through clients’ money although most of it has not been identified.
Some offered to help identify the properties that Zingane and his wife acquired.
Mr Antonio said provisional liquidators were reportedly struggling to identify most of the assets because they were not registered in the name of the company.
He said another creditors’ meeting would be convened next month for clients to prove their claims.
Mr Antonio said the drawback was that the provisional liquidation was yet to be confirmed because the company had no money to engage lawyers for the process.
“The hiccup is that the provisional order has not been confirmed. What needs to be done now is to apply for an extension of the provisional order to get its confirmation, a process which needs a full month,” said Mr Antonio.
He said once the provisional liquidation was confirmed, the liquidators would then start attending to individual claims whereby each client would be repaid, but depending on the available pool of capital.
It also emerged that the company had no bank account as clients continued to quiz the Deputy Master whether there was any money in any bank.
Mr Ndlovu and Mr Antonio initially wanted to postpone the meeting but faced stiff resistance from the vociferous crowd as clients demanded to know whether their names were captured as creditors.
“We drove from Victoria Falls while some are coming from Gokwe and other parts of the country so you cannot tell us that you invited us to waste time.
“We cannot come to your office to check our names because that is as good as inviting the police to beat us because we would be congested there. Read out our names now,” said a client from the crowd.
Messrs Ndlovu and Antonio took turns to read out a total of 3 099 names compiled in nine batches.
The meeting started at 8.30am and ended in the afternoon.
Geozing has been locked in a series of battles with hundreds of its clients who have made several court applications seeking to recover their money.
Geozing Pawnbrokers collapsed in April resulting in hundreds of investors losing thousands of dollars invested with the company.
The company was promising to pay 30 percent interest on investment per month.
Another meeting would be held tomorrow at the same venue.
Online Reporter